Victor Figueroa-Clark defends the FSLN’s programme
In November Daniel Ortega and his FSLN party won Nicaragua’s presidential and parliamentary elections. While supporters say that the Sandinista governments since 2006 represent the second phase of the revolution started in 1979, opponents claim that the FSLN has betrayed its origins, and the government is in the process of installing what they call a ‘Danielista’ dictatorship. With so many former Sandinistas among the ranks of the opposition, a look at the measures taken by the Sandinista government can help to determine whether ‘21st-century Sandinismo’ lives up to its name.
Nicaragua is still the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. An earthquake in 1972 was later followed by civil war, leading up to the revolutionary victory in 1979. After visiting Nicaragua that July, Costa Rica’s president wrote to his fellows at the OAS to say, ‘Today Nicaragua is a nation destroyed.’
There followed a ten-year war imposed by the US’s Reagan administration as part of its efforts to ‘roll back’ communism. The world’s wealthiest country went to war on one of the poorest using a proxy army. The war killed 50,000 Nicaraguans and maimed many more. Enormous damage was done to the economy. In 1987 a hurricane almost finished off what Reagan had started. The gradual withdrawal of Soviet support exacerbated the crisis. The war continued – and in the 1990 elections the US pumped millions into financing the Nicaraguan opposition and the FSLN lost.
Shattering defeat
Despite the war, economic crisis and the collapse of ‘existing socialism’, the FSLN garnered 40 per cent of the vote. But the defeat was unexpected and shattering to Sandinista morale. It ushered in years of neoliberal governments that privatised and ransacked the state, ignoring the 1987 constitution. Rural areas were abandoned, there were no real plans for national development and little investment outside new free trade zones, malls and motorways for the rich. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, forced into economic exile or the grim shadow world of the ‘informal sector’. Illiteracy, malnutrition and disease began to take their toll.
By the time the FSLN won the 2006 elections, Nicaragua had endured 16 years of this. According to UN figures, 27 per cent of the population suffered malnutrition; 22 per cent were illiterate. In 2005, 48.3 per cent of the population lived in poverty and more than 17 per cent in extreme poverty. A study carried out in 2007–08 found that 58 per cent of Nicaraguans were unable to access adequate healthcare as a result of privatisation and lack of investment.
Per capita GDP grew by only 0.6 per cent a year in the 1990s, and although growth averaged 4 per cent after 2000, this wasn’t enough to bring people out of abject poverty. Inequality was immense and growing. The top 10 per cent of the population accounted for 41.3 per cent of income, worse even than under the dictator Somoza.
Illiteracy has again been eliminated. Photo: Jenny Matthews
National plan
This was the reality that the FSLN was committed to overcoming. Going back to its roots, it concentrated on building relationships with social movements, and these, together with trade unions and the business sector, came up with the National Human Development Plan. This advocated a renewed state role in the economy, prioritising infrastructure and poverty elimination programmes. The FSLN also designed an energy policy that focused on renewable energy, to create reliable energy sources for industry and turn Nicaragua into an energy exporter.
The FSLN knew that coming to power would create international challenges, not least with the US, so they continued the Sandinista commitment to regional integration. The final element of the strategy was to strengthen democracy, building new participatory structures to bypass representative structures permeated with corruption and bureaucracy.
The economic measures of the national plan have had concrete results, partly thanks to government efforts, partly due to high coffee prices. The government has worked hard to find new markets in Latin America, the EU, Russia and China, and through ALBA (the Bolivian Alliance for the Americas trade group), Nicaragua’s exports to Venezuela have risen massively. As a result, GDP has grown by a quarter since 2005. Exports are up 77.3 per cent since 2006 and currency reserves have doubled. In 2010 GDP grew by 4.5 per cent, the highest growth rate in Central America. It is clear that the Sandinista economic policy has been a success, and although it remains vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices, there has been progress in diversifying products and markets.
Economic growth has been possible because the shortages of fuel and blackouts of yesteryear have been ended. Oil from Venezuela has subsidised this process and allowed the government to diversify energy production. Nicaragua now has hydroelectric, geothermal, wind and solar energy plants. The electricity grid has been extended to connect the Caribbean coast, although 100 per cent coverage is still to be achieved. The aim of the renewable energy projects is to make Nicaragua’s energy 90 per cent renewable by 2017, although it is unclear how far Nicaragua’s dependence on oil has been reduced.
Other infrastructure projects have included the construction and improvement of 6,000 kilometres of roads and new bridges connecting the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. Much work has also gone into improving water systems, providing clean water to hundreds of thousands of people.
Health and education
As in the 1980s, the most noticeable changes have been brought about in health and education. Government statistics point to a reduction in maternal mortality, and although the detailed figures are contested by the opposition, the overall trend is down. Medical brigades from Cuba and Nicaragua have returned to the countryside. The majority of municipal health centres are now open 24 hours.
The extension of free healthcare has been supplemented by the provision of food, transport and energy subsidies for the poor. With free school meals, these have allowed Nicaragua to reduce malnutrition.
In education the Sandinista government has restored free schooling and eliminated illiteracy for the second time in 30 years. Critics point out that thousands of children are still not enrolled in the education system, but the government says it is taking steps to resolve the problem. According to the Ministry of Education, spending on education has increased from 4.8 per cent of GDP to 5.5 per cent in 2011. Nicaragua currently spends 53.9 per cent of its budget on health and education. While much remains to be done there has been a notable change of emphasis.
The opposition implodes
Meanwhile, the political opposition to the FSLN has imploded. In November, Ortega won the presidential election with 62.5 per cent of the vote and the FSLN won a majority in Congress. The strength of popular supportt for the FSLN platform was such that its opponents even promised not to scrap Sandinista subsidies or health and education programmes.
Lacking a popular agenda, the opposition concentrates on trying to undermine the legitimacy of the Sandinista government, using its excellent international contacts and domination of the media. A lack of mass political support has provoked it into extremism. It is as if it cannot believe that its lacklustre showing can be due to a lack of convincing political arguments, and can therefore only be the result of an ever more pervasive ‘Danielista’ dictatorship.
Neither Ortega nor the FSLN is perfect and they reflect existing contradictions in Nicaraguan society. However, since 2007 Nicaragua has made significant progress. It remains poor, and clearly has a long way to go before overcoming the challenges of poverty, deprivation and the legacy of chronic want and underdevelopment. However, under the Sandinistas it has made a promising start to what will be a long journey.
Dr Victor Figueroa Clark completed his PhD on the Sandinista Revolution at the LSE, and is a guest teacher in the LSE’s International History Department where he teaches US-Latin American relations. He is currently writing a political biography of Salvador Allende, due out in Autumn 2013 with Pluto Press.

Winning elections, losing the revolution

The FSLN of today is very different from the organisation that emerged from the revolution, argue Alberto Cortés-Ramos and Martha Isabel Cranshaw
After the FSLN lost the 1990 elections, Daniel Ortega gradually became the main visible reference in the party leadership. This process, which started before the elections, was reinforced by the so-called ‘Ortega–Alemán’ pact in 2000. By this, each recognised the other as the main leader of their respective parties and decided to divide control over public institutions among their loyal partisans in a booty‑type way, typical of the Latin American caudillo traditions.
Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife, has played an increasingly important role in this new dynamic within the party, especially after the serious accusation of sexual abuse made by Murillo’s daughter against Ortega in 1998. Faced with this accusation, Murillo stood by her husband, playing a key role in his defence. Afterwards her loyalty gave her great power. She was the head of the 2001, 2006 and 2011 election campaigns. Indeed, after the 2006 victory she was kind of de facto prime minister, putting in key figures loyal to her and dismissing ministers, officials and party cadres that threatened her power or did not toe her line.
Radical ethic overturned
A second aspect of the transformation of the FSLN has to do with ethics. FSLN founder Carlos Fonseca Amador imbued the organisation with a strong ethical component, derived from its revolutionary ideas and expressed in a contempt for material accumulation. This ethic was reinforced by the theology of liberation and the significant presence of the poet Ernesto Cardenal and other members of the popular church. This radical ethic was essential for the FSLN to maintain the moral authority and support of the Nicaraguan people during the hard years of war caused by the counter-revolution.
The billboard reads ‘To fulfill the people is to fulfill God’. Christian references are now common in Sandinista communications. Photo: Jenny Matthews
However, shortly after electoral defeat, there was a debate within the FSLN about what to do with the state enterprises and properties. One side said the FSLN should defend the state and cooperative property created during the revolution, while the other advocated transferring as much property as possible to party members, to be later transferred to the party itself. This ‘pragmatic’ position won with the support of Daniel Ortega, generating a profound disenchantment within and outside Nicaragua, especially when the commitment to transfer property to the party was never fulfilled.
This privatisation and appropriation of public property, known as the ‘piñata’, was the germ for a new generation of Sandinista businessmen during the 1990s. And with it came a new atmosphere of resignation. Orteguismo assumed that in order to survive the Sandinistas had to employ the same means and morality as their opponents. This transformation led to later divisions within the FSLN. Dissidents were expelled and the pragmatic group, headed by Ortega, consolidated party control.
Adapting to neoliberalism
The emergence of a Sandinista entrepreneurship, linked to the hegemonic group, took place in the international context of neoliberal development and privatisation of the public sector, a trend against which Ortega offered no serious resistance. Again, this marked a break with the position of the party during the revolution. At that time, the FSLN was seeking a radical transformation of the productive structure, property and social relations. It was trying to create a new kind of society, democratic and just, with a mixed economy in which both public and social ownership would play a strategic role.
During the 1990s and up to the present, the FSLN not only abandoned the revolutionary programme but adapted itself to neoliberalism. Two indicators confirm this shift. First, the FSLN did not oppose a free trade agreement when it was negotiated by President Bolaños, and did not attempt to reject or renegotiate it once it took office in 2006. Second, while the Ortega government has received massive financial support from Venezuela, it has channelled it through the Sandinista business sector rather than through the state. Today, 22 years after the discontinuation of the revolution, the FSLN has economic interests in various sectors of the economy: tourism, construction, financial sector, agricultural production, trade, services and petroleum products, among others. This has facilitated it reaching agreements with Nicaragua’s traditional big capital and leading families, which has undermined the transformative potential of the FSLN.
Religious transformation
Meanwhile, the religious transformation of the presidential couple has influenced the whole way the party operates. This has led to conservative policies, including the prohibition of therapeutic abortion and the rejection of gay marriage.
Unlike the FSLN during the revolutionary period, the Ortega–Murillo couple broke with the feminist movement and are now allied with conservative figures, such as Cardinal Obando y Bravo, who was a bitter enemy of the revolutionary process in the 1980s. Now the discourses and iconography of the party are full of Christian religious references and symbols.
During the revolution, the Sandinistas promoted grassroots empowerment and democratic participation, even if the ‘Contra’ war and permanent militarisation undermined this effort. Today’s ‘councils of citizen power’ might echo this effort, but in practice have proved to be partisan and even instruments of personal power that exclude the participation of independent civil society organisations.
While access to certain public services has improved under Ortega, in general social policy is aimed only at the survival of the beneficiary families and not the transformation of Nicaraguan society. The government has accepted IMF proposals for reform of social security, against union opposition, and health policy has been skewed towards Sandinista business interests in the pharmaceutical sector.
A final point has to do with the other powers of the state. From the Ortega-Alemán pact onwards, the supreme court and the electoral supreme council became institutions controlled by supporters of the two caudillos. Later, Ortega took advantage of the confrontation between right-wing rivals Aleman and Bolaños to complete Sandinista control of these powers. This has allowed openly partisan use of the justice administration and corrupt handling of recent elections, which have resulted in accusations of fraud both locally and internationally.
The Sandinistas may be winning elections again, but they are now accommodated to a neoliberal logic. As the great poet Pablo Neruda said in another context: ‘They, of that time, are no longer the same . . .’
Alberto Cortés-Ramos is professor of political science at the University of Costa Rica. Martha Isabel Cranshaw is co-ordinator of the Leadership Committee of Nicaraguan Migrants

How did you become politically conscious and active?
I am from Cuzco, and there you could always see the tremendous abuses carried out against the indigenous population. And the area always had a tradition of struggle. I remember a teacher at primary school taught us indigenous protest songs, and we also saw theatrical plays about past struggles. So I think it was natural to come to this.

How are indigenous forms of organisation different to traditional left-wing forms of organisation?
There are no hierarchies. Although sometimes leaders emerge, or greedy people that hog the land, the essence is that we fight for a government by all. The indigenous communities that have survived for 500 years are collectivist political mechanisms. They are democratic and they have been recognised by several political constitutions. There are places where there are what could be called ‘communities of communities’, like in the Peruvian Amazon or in Cauca in Colombia. The Kuna in Panama are also recognised by the Panamanian government. The best example is that of Chiapas in Mexico, where a collective indigenous government has controlled the area for many years, and where leaders can be recalled.

How does the indigenous movement understand the concepts of progress and development?
Development hasn’t really reached the indigenous. They are those who least benefit from it. The system comes to exploit them and their land. They know much better than urban people that we are dependent on nature. Children in the developed world think potatoes come from the supermarket, but an indigenous person knows that he lives as part of nature and so when nature is attacked they must defend it.
Now, they might be able to use some elements of so-called civilization, but there is no comparison between these benefits and the damage done to nature. For example, you want to open a mine but it will poison the water and it will take water used for agriculture. This is absolutely lethal for the indigenous. For all the possible benefits that it might produce, such as jobs, schools or hospitals, it can’t substitute for life, and so they prefer to fight against it, and live without the mine.

What implications does this have for the progressive governments of Latin America? How are the indigenous interacting or conflicting with them over issues like these?
Well, firstly I think that they are definitely progressive governments. They confront imperialism and their national oligarchies, and much of their strength, especially in Bolivia and Ecuador, comes from the indigenous movement, and we defend them unconditionally.
But when they confront the indigenous we support the indigenous people. Not simply because they are indigenous, but because we consider them to be more democratic than the governments themselves are.
I think it is the governments that are acting in a contradictory manner. Yes they are progressive and anti-oligarchic and anti-imperialist, but they continue with extractive economic policies.
This is an aggression against their indigenous populations and these peoples have to defend themselves.

How does this indigenous struggle link to the so-called developed world? How international is it?
We have little to do with the struggles [in the UK], but we work with ecosocialists, and we identify completely with them because the indigenous struggle is ecosocialist. Although we don’t call it ecological or socialist, that is what it is in essence.
There was recently a meeting of Peruvian and Ecuadorean indigenous people up on the border, and they said, ‘Before we were divided, but now we will unite and fight the multinationals together.’
And we always have international meetings. The first meeting against neoliberalism and for humanity took place in Chiapas, called by the indigenous peoples there, long before the social forums, and now the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador define these countries as pluri-national and so states themselves are changing.

Regional bodies such as the OAS, the Rio Group, ALBA, Mercosur and UNASUR have also called for the restoration of the constitutionally elected president. Furthermore, Zelaya has received the support of the Inter American Human Rights Commission, and been invited to address the UN General Assembly ‘as soon as possible’ by its President, Miguel D’Escoto. After this address, Zelaya plans to return to Honduras, accompanied by Jose Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General of the OAS, and possibly other regional heads of state, with the aim of being reinstated as president.

The story behind the coup

Honduras is a deeply unequal country, with the richest 10 per cent of the population taking home 43.7 per cent of the national income. In contrast, the poorest 30 per cent take just 7.4 per cent, and just under 40 per cent of the population live in poverty (defined as earning less than double the cost of the basic food basket). Only 4.7 per cent of Hondurans have access to the internet, which might go some way to explaining the social background of Honduran coup cheerleaders on English-language websites such as the BBC.

Since coming to power in 2006 president Zelaya has gradually moved to the left, and at the time of the coup was taking steps to address Honduras’ gross levels of inequality. Predictably, these moves earned him the enmity of much of congress, whose ties to the country’s traditional elites run deep. Zelaya also angered these elites by pursuing a leftist foreign policy, joining the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), an alternative regional trade group composed of nine left-leaning Latin American and Caribbean countries. The arrival of Cuban doctors to provide healthcare to the poorest sectors of Honduran society was met with particular hostility by Zelaya’s opponents.
Honduras’ leftward turn also undoubtedly caused significant discomfort among some in Washington, especially at a time when much of Latin America has seemed to move beyond the reach of US political influence.

The catalyst for the assault on the presidential home by the Honduran armed forces, and the subsequent detention and expulsion of the president from the country was the non-binding consultative poll that was due to take place on Sunday (28 June) on whether a referendum ought to be held on the convocation of a constituent assembly, alongside the presidential election ballot in November 2010 (when Zelaya’s term ends). In other words, the coup was sparked by a non-binding vote intended to consult Hondurans on whether or not they wanted to be asked about a constitutional reform, and not because Zelaya wished to extend his term indefinitely, as has been widely reported in the mainstream international media.

This last point is one of several lies and misleading statements issued by the new dictatorship, which have been amply covered uncritically in the mainstream media. Another key one is that the coup is in fact a ‘constitutional transfer of power’. This requires a bizarre leap in logic if we consider the facts of Zelaya’s overthrow: the president’s home was assaulted by the military; after 15 minutes of combat the president himself was kidnapped and bundled into a military aircraft in his pyjamas and flown into exile; his ministers were detained and beaten, alongside the ambassadors of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

While Honduras’ new and illegally installed ‘president’, Roberto Micheletti (the former leader of congress), has declared that ’80 or 90 per cent of the population support what happened today’, this is highly doubtful given the imposition of a curfew, the ongoing street demonstrations by Zelaya’s supporters, road blockades in the west of the country, and the general strike called for by social organisations and the trade union movement. However, as is the norm with coups against progressive leaders in Latin America, Micheletti has received expressions of support from the country’s business sector.

Role of the US

What remains to be seen is whether the Honduran military will be prepared to shed the blood of its people to protect an illegal government with no visible international backing.

And here, as is also the norm with coups against progressive governments in Latin America, the words and actions of the US government, closely watched as ever, will be decisive. While the Obama administration has joined Latin America’s governments in condemning the coup, the US precise role in the days running up to the coup still remains unclear.

While there is little direct evidence of US interference in Honduras’ coup, Eva Golinger has indicated certain similarities between the US-supported coup that briefly removed Hugo Chavez from power in Venezuela in 2002, and the current situation in Honduras. Golinger points out that a New York Times article states that the US government was working for ‘several days’ with the Honduran coup planners in order to ‘prevent’ the coup. Given that around 70 per cent of Honduras’ trade is with the US, its army is heavily backed by Washington, and the Pentagon maintains a military base in the country, equipped with approximately 500 troops and numerous air force combat planes and helicopters, it would seem naïve not to believe that if the US government had expressed their firm opposition to the coup, it would never have occurred. Furthermore, the US track record of undermining and supporting and participating in the overthrow of democratically elected government in Latin America cannot be overlooked.

Regardless of the extent of US involvement in, or support for the coup, the US position in the next couple of days will go a long way to determining whether its already precarious relationship with much of Latin America will deteriorate. The US has several options here: it can send a representative to accompany president Zelaya back to Honduras on Thursday, and it can threaten military, economic and political sanctions, all of which would have a strong effect on the usurpers of power in Tegucigalpa.

If Obama’s government wants to send a powerful message about the sincerity behind the US rhetoric on liberty, democracy, and respect for the rule of law, it needs to accompany words with actions, and use its considerable influence in Honduras to actively support the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as the country’s legitimate president.